Nirvana: Live at the Paramount

Last night I watched Nirvana’s Live at the Paramount.  The concert was filmed on Halloween of 1991.  I was stunned by how fresh and direct the band still sounded, how young they looked, and how the music still resonates.  The movie brilliantly captures the last moment of the band before they became superstars. 

My last Halloween at The Village of Pine Run was in 1991.  Pine Run was a rough community of townhouses and apartments that sat on the wrong side of the old train tracks.  We had lived there since I was four. 

In ’91, I was a junior in High School.  On Halloween after school, I worked out in the weight room.  I caught a ride home from Jamie Skelly.  We listened to Public Enemy’s Apocalypse ’91… The Enemy Strikes Black.  “Can’t Truss It” was blaring out from the uncovered Jeep.

Jamie had been trying to get me to ask out one of his friends, a girl named Ann.  However, I had a crush on the blond exchange student from Sweden, Maulin.  At the start of the school year, Maulin was accidentally placed in my honors English Class.  She didn’t like the teacher.  Actually, I didn’t get along with the teacher, either.  We had a summer assignment to keep a journal.  I tried to document many of the changes, including losing my grandmother, and my best friend’s mother being murdered.  My teacher said I was too wordy. 

By October, Maulin had dropped out of the class.  For most of the fall, I was still trying to get her attention, but she ended up dating seniors. 

On Halloween, after Jamie dropped me off at home, I took the dog out to be walked.  My family had a wired haired fox terrier named Casey, and he looked like Asta from The Thin Man.  He was just over a year old.  We had a large window on our front door.  When Casey would sit at the door his head would just reach over the bottom of the frame and he’d stare at the outside world. 

Casey was an exceptionally energetic terrier, who loved people. Halloween was Casey’s favorite holiday.   That day my parents were at work and I was left to hand out candy to the neighborhood kids.  Casey would watch as the kids walked up to the door.  He would whimper, shake, and his tail would wag furiously.  I had to open the door while basically sitting on top of Casey so he wouldn’t shoot out and frighten the kids.  My family thought this was pretty funny. 

After walking the dog, I went upstairs to my room to finish my homework before the kids started Trick-or-Treating.  As was my habit, the first thing I did before homework was to put on music which usually included raiding my brother’s collection. 

My brother, Chris, had graduated from college in the Spring of  ‘91 and was living back home.  He got a job on the floor of the Philly Stock Exchange.  After four years of him being away, I moved back to the smaller room.  He brought back his cds, albums and cassettes.  The music collection at our house tripled.

Chris and I would ride around in his brand new red Volkswagen Jetta listening to 3^rd Bass, Public Enemy, U2, Sinead O’Connor, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Peter Gabriel, Guy, New Jack Swing, New Wave, old soul music, Jane’s Addiction.  The music was a hodge-podge of cassettes and cds that covered the history of rock and roll up to and including Hip-Hop and independent college radio. 

My brother’s friend, Pat, was still at school at Stockton, near Atlantic City.  That summer he had seen a new band at the Atlantic City Convention Hall.  The band, Pearl Jam, filmed their first video, Alive, while performing.  Pat had been the biggest U2 fan in the world, but he wouldn’t stop talking about Pearl Jam.  Which lead us listening to little known underground bands from Seattle: Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Alice in Chains and Nirvana.   

At sixteen, I was still a big Who fan.  A favorite of my dad’s, I grew up with their music.  By the time I was in high school, I pretty much knew their entire catalogue.  Occasionally late at night PBS or MTV, even later at night, would broadcast old concert movies, Woodstock, The concert for Bangladesh, Gimmie Shelter and so on.  Fall of my junior year of high school I saw clips of The Who at the Isle of Wight, from 1970.  From the perspective of 1991, 1970 seemed like the dark ages.  The Who had become dinosaurs of classic rock radio, practically ignored by my peers. 

Eventually, I ended up taking Jamie’s advice and dated Ann, first, briefly during my junior year, and then again my senior year.  We were still dating my freshman year in college.  December of my first semester, I had tickets to see Nirvana at the William and Mary Hall.   However, I was failing “Harvard” Calculus. 

Harvard calculus was a new form of teaching Calculus developed by Harvard professors that Harvard University rejected for being too esoteric.  The attempt was to make calculus more than just math, but for the students to understand the theory.  To my great misfortune, my school decided to make a full year of Harvard Calculus a requirement for business majors.  I failed the first three tests of the semester, and was in danger of failing the class. 

Starting in late October, future NFL all pro Darren Sharper and I, went to extra help three times a week and then, before finals, everyday.  The Nirvana concert was the day before my Calculus final.  I figured that Nirvana was one of the great bands of my generation, and as the Rolling Stones and The Who were the great bands of a previous generation; I would have several opportunities to see them.  I sold my tickets and buckled down for a night of studying.  I passed the course. 

A few months later, Ann was the one who called me at school to say that Kurt Cobain had killed himself.  Even then, the talk and the news centered around how a moment had passed, the end of grunge, or the loss of innocence for Generation X.  Yet, what haunts me is that I missed a chance to see something special.  I no longer remember the complex mathematical equations of integrals or derivatives.  Yet, I guess the theory of Calculus has stayed with me.  Calculus attempts to study change by looking at fixed points. 

Last night as I sat transfixed by the young Nirvana, ready to conquer the world, I thought back to the night the concert was recorded, twenty-one years earlier, maybe yesterday.  I can see how much I’ve changed.  Nirvana is forever playing at the Palladium on Halloween, 1991.